When comparing Vifm vs Dolphin, the Slant community recommends Dolphin for most people. In the question“What are the best Linux file managers?”Dolphin is ranked 1st while Vifm is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose Dolphin is:

As with any KDE app, Dolphin, allows adding or modifying toolbar buttons and keyboard shortcuts.

Default key mappings will be comfortable to vim users

Pro

Allows you to stay in the terminal

Since it runs in a terminal, it may live within ssh sessions, tmux/screen sessions, etc.

Pro

Immenseley configurable

As with any KDE app, Dolphin, allows adding or modifying toolbar buttons and keyboard shortcuts.

Pro

Can split views

Dolphin supports splitting the view in two navigational areas, this way you can navigate two different directories at the same time.

Pro

Easy to extend with plugins

Dolphin follows KDE's philosophy of being extendable and configurable. It can easily be configured and customized through plugins.

Pro

Integrated terminal

Perssing F4 with any opened folder on a mounted path opens a konsole within dolphin.

Pro

Auto mounts flash drives

Dolphin automatically identifies and mounts external flash drives.

Pro

Also has a refresh option

Dolphin is without a doubt the best fully functional and easy to use and multitask with.• Dolphin also has a refresh button which no other File manager has. It's great for tracking a large files transfer; that's what file managers are for - good common sense.

Pro

Fast at opening graphics folders

Pictures with or without previews is optional and selectable at the touch of a button.

Pro

Fully supports HiDPI

Supports HiDPI displays.

Pro

Does not use third party libraries

Unlike all those GTK-based file managers it does not have to rely on external written software for its functionality because KF5 is KDE SOftware and developed alongside.

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Cons

Con

Can only be used in terminal

Vifm lacks a standalone GUI option.

Con

Maybe a little slow on startup

Dolphin can be a little slow on startup (depending on distro, hardware etc...). Startup time can vary from a couple of seconds to up to a minute.

Con

too simple

Fells weird on KDE because it has less customizing options Konqueror and any other KDE app have.

Con

"Type" column too verbose

Despite having a large enough monitor, If you keep the size of the browser window small, the "Type" column (in "Details" view mode) insists on including the complete multipart MIME string, making the column so wide that trying to limit its width makes the column useless. Sorting by "Type" renders the list into an incomprehensible mess.

Con

Can't perform ROOT actions

Developers set a constraint in Dolphin that deny Dolphin to run with root permissions. Hence, if you want to perform an action that require root permissions, such as rename a file in /etc/ folder, you are forced to use terminal or switch to another file manager.

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